Jessica Johnson & Family - May 2007

Day 1 - May 15, 2007

It's not exactly a secret that I'm a huge Disney fan, but I've always been the only one in my family. Well, immediate family, anyway. My parents always kind of tolerated me and my insistence that they HAD to go to Disney, but when I was finally able to get them there, it turns out that they enjoyed it. When that happened, my father figured my younger brother would enjoy it, but he'd never been able to convince him to go. So, you can imagine my shock when at Christmas I got an email from my brother telling me he wanted to plan a trip to Disney for himself and his girlfriend.

After I picked my jaw up off the floor, and made Chris read the email to be sure I wasn't hallucinating, I started pricing things for him, and offered to go down with him so I could get him a few discounts, etc. I tried my best not to take over his trip, and basically we made plans for me to come down, I would pick them up at the airport and take them back. Because of our upcoming summer epic adventure, Chris would only be able to come down for the weekend, so we would take them out to dinner while he was down, and otherwise, I'd do my thing, unless asked to join them.

They had an early flight on the 16th, so of course I had to come down the night before (I'm always willing to sacrifice for my family!). I had originally planned to spend 2 nights at All Star Sports, one night at All Star Music, and then move to Port Orleans Riverside for the last 2 nights, with Chris. But, when it was time to book the hotels, Music had no availability, so I ended up with 3 reservations at 2 different hotels in 5 days ;o)

I did my best to get things packed and ready to leave the night before, and I was up by noon (way early for me) and out the door by 12:30 and on my way to Disney. The trip down was pretty uneventful. I'm not the biggest fan of driving, but I manage when I have to, and was just glad to pull onto Disney property. Things were going well, until I managed to miss a turn and quickly found myself heading right back off property and onto 4. I made the nearest U-turn, and was soon on the road to the All Stars.

Check-in went pretty quickly, it was past 5, so the room was ready. I mentioned the continuing reservations, and while I would have to check out and check back in, they did block off the room so I could stay in the same one for the whole trip. They printed the key for me, and I headed back out to the car to drive around to my room. I was in building 8, Homerun Hotel, and luckily the parking was pretty empty by that side of the hotel. I parked, and then unloaded all of my stuff. I had a suitcase, my laptop backpack, a cooler, and half a case of water. I then learned that it's not a good idea to travel with half a case of water and just one person, because when you put it on top of the rolling suitcase, the bottles keep falling out. This makes it even more difficult to get all your crap to your room- but luckily I was the second room in from the end, so I was soon there.

Once in the room, I took a few pictures, then plugged in the cooler (since the value resorts don't have fridges, I'd brought our travel cooler to use as a fridge). Then I broke out the laptop and did some work, but I was determined to be out of the room by 6:30, and I made it. I drove myself over to Epcot, and then headed to Guest Services to pick up my new Disney Dining Experience card.

Then I headed through security and into the park. I took a few pictures of the topiaries- as you first enter, you come across a pirate ship with Peter Pan, Captain Hook and Tinkerbell. Behind the pirate ship was Tick Tock Croc, and then in a dinghy was Pirate Stitch. I then made my way up past SpaceShip Earth and decided that I wanted a hot dog, so headed off towards Mission Space to the stand there. I called Chris on my way over, and when I got to the stand they weren't serving. Sadly, this was the only hot dog stand in the park, so I needed to pick a new food, and decided I'd get a brat in Germany. I headed up to the Minnie's Butterfly Garden and walked through there before going out into the walkway between FutureWorld and the World Showcase. Here they had a Belle and Beast topiary, a Snow White and Dopey one, and then Pirate Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, and Pluto. I took pictures of all of them, then set off to Mexico.

In Mexico, they had a Three Caballeros topiary, and after a picture of it, I decided to head inside and check out the new boat ride. There was no wait, so I was soon in the boat and making my way through the ride. I've always had a sort of cult-ish love of El Rio del Tiempo, and I was kind of disappointed to see the changes. It's pretty much the exact same ride, but in the beginning there are new cartoon sequences. Plus, with all the changes they made, they still haven't fixed the one audio-animatronic girl who has been on fire for the last few years. She's still burning.

Anyway, after the ride, I headed off through China, and then Norway, and into Germany, where I found a huge line out into the courtyard for the brats, so decided I'd skip that one. I headed through Italy, and into the American Adventure where I decided to get a cheeseburger. These lines were long too- but I eventually had my burger, and after a few minutes, I was full, and on my way back around the world. I realized that Davy Jones was about to start his very last show as a part of the Flower Power Concert Series, so I wandered in and took a seat.

Deb is a huge Davy Jones fan, so I called her so she could hear a song. Then, I made my way to the aisle where I took some pictures, and then set off to see what else I could find. As I was walking through Japan I decided that I'd stop at the Patisserie in France for a dessert, so I kept going through Morocco and into France. Continuing my theme for the night, France had a huge line, so I skipped that too. It was starting to get dark, and late, so I decided to keep wandering and find a spot to see Illuminations.

I made it to the World Showcase Plaza, and found a seat, sat for a few minutes and then decided to head out of the park before it got really crowded. I had just gotten back to my car when the fireworks started, and I called Chris while I drove back to the resort. I decided that I wanted to have some ice cream, so walked over to the food court, where I discovered that they didn't have soft serve :o( Instead I got a turkey and muenster sandwich, some grapes and a brownie, and then made my way back to the room.

I settled in to do some work, watch General Hospital on SoapNet and then get ready for bed, as I had a long day coming up.

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